In this post, I celebrate World Poetry Day, honor some of my favorite poets, and share an original poem from an upcoming book I am writing.

I write this post on March 21, 2025 – World Poetry Day – as I continue work on my upcoming book, Especially the Branches – Observations, Musings, and Lessons. So, I take great interest and pleasure in celebrating poetry around the globe as winter ends and spring begins here in North America. Begun in 1999, World Poetry Day provides an opportunity for poets worldwide to celebrate their art and express themselves.

I only had to read the poem, If, by Rudyard Kipling once to believe it was a masterpiece, and after another twenty or so readings I had a complete knowing my original belief was true. Kipling’s words spoke volumes to me… “If you can keep your head about you, while others are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubting, too.” By the time I read the ending, I wanted to stand up and cheer: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch; if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; if all men count with you, but none too much; if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run – yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, and – which is more – you’ll be a man, my son!”¹

I experienced a similar satori when I read A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, especially the following lines: “Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time; footprints, that perhaps another, sailing o’er life’s solemn main, a forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.”²

Children begin their lives surrounded by poetry in children’s books and programs, but somehow move away from poetry as they grow older. That’s too bad. Thanks to my eighth grade English teacher, the late George Germak, I discovered poetry can be fun as well as profound, entertaining as well as meaningful. I have been reading and writing poetry ever since. We need to bridge the gap and keep people reading poetry throughout their lives.

In The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost wrote of coming to two different roads while walking in the woods, contemplating and determining which road to follow, and he concluded his poem with the inspirational and encouraging words: “I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence; two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”³ We all face choices, seemingly every day, and Frost encourages us to make those choices confident that we are choosing correctly and wisely.

You cannot do much better with your free time than spending some of it reading poetry and sharing your favorites with family and friends. That is why I decided to move forward with writing Especially the Branches – Observations, Musings, and Lessons. Here, then, is the title piece, 

Especially the Branches:

“I wonder why volumes are written 

of the colorful leaves that fall in autumn, 

yet so little is said of the bare branches 

that endure even the winter’s coldest hour.

I wonder why there are so many thoughts 

of those who look good on the outside, 

but less is thought of the beauty within.

When you feel the senseless need to judge, 

remain silent and remember the trees.

Especially the branches.”

Happy World Poetry Day, everyone! Be sure to celebrate and encourage others to appreciate the feelings, messages, memories, and satisfaction found in poems.

REMEMBER…

◊ Check out the article, 10 Greatest Poems Ever Written, published by The Society of Classical Poets. You can access it at https://classicalpoets.org/2016/01/10-greatest-poems-ever-written/. 

◊ Check out the Literary Hub’s The 32 Most Iconic Poems in the English Language by Emily Temple at https://lithub.com/the-32-most-iconic-poems-in-the-english-language/.  

◊ Search for great poetry online at www.poetryfoundation.org.

◊ Visit www.davidajolley.com for additional blog posts, other interesting content, and updates on future book releases.

1.  Kipling, Rudyard, If, Public Domain, www.poets.org/poems/if. ↩︎
2. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, A Psalm of Life, Public Domain, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44644/a-psalm-of-life. ↩︎
3. Frost, Robert, The Road Not Taken, Public Domain, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken. ↩︎